Please Support FR
Click The Pic To Donate.
Posted on 10/18/2021 11:46:36 AM PDT by Kaslin
By this year’s standards, the process that led to Obamacare seems like a veritable exercise in transparency and open government.
How quickly Democrats forget. A dozen years ago, President Barack Obama faced strong and justified criticism for backtracking on his promise, made numerous times during the 2008 presidential campaign, to televise health-care negotiations on C-SPAN:
By this year’s standards, however, the process that led to Obamacare—the law that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, said we had to pass in order to find out what’s in it—seems like a veritable exercise in transparency and open government. It’s gotten so bad that press reports over the weekend suggest Democrats may look to create a carbon tax—which could impose massive new burdens on working-class Americans—without so much as a single hearing in Congress on the proposal.
“I’ve had a carbon pricing bill in my desk for the last three years just waiting for the time,” Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, told The New York Times. Funny how he didn’t mention that fact before the election last November or show the American people the details of what he proposes.
Sure, committees in the House of Representatives marked up their portions of the reconciliation bill last month. The House Budget Committee amalgamated those committee prints into a colossal mega-bill, H.R. 5376, which they introduced September 27.
But people in Washington recognize that 2,468-page monstrosity for what it is: An opening offer never intended to constitute the final version of the legislation. Democrats needed to mark up something—anything—to get the process going, and began with the provisions in H.R. 5376. They did so knowing full well that major portions of the bill would get re-written. That’s because of several reasons:
That last factor has become the most important, with lawmakers insisting that the bill cost no more than $X trillion, or at least $Y trillion, or definitely exclude provision A or include provision B.
But in all cases, these negotiations are taking place behind closed doors, with Democrats hoping to hold only a perfunctory public vote when and if they corral the majorities needed to pass the bill. Lawmakers are debating trillions of dollars in spending, and legislation that will affect many facets of just about every American’s life, without even bothering to hold any public hearing or discussion about what these changes will do for the average voter.
As to how much that legislation will cost, not even the Congressional Budget Office knows. In a letter dated October 6 responding to a request by congressional Republicans, CBO explained that the budget office still has not completed cost estimates for H.R. 5376, and may not any time soon:
CBO has not completed…an estimate of the entire legislative package, and it is unclear when we will do so. The legislation being considered by the House is complex, and provisions in some committees’ recommendations interact with those of other committees. Moreover, the agency has had to devote substantial resources to providing technical assistance as committees continue to modify their proposals.
The letter went on to state that CBO “is prioritizing technical assistance to committees for reconciliation legislation that they are developing, which has delayed cost estimates for legislation that those same committees have approved.”
In other words, CBO is so busy helping Democrats re-write their bill that they don’t have time to estimate the costs of the original version of the legislation that House committees considered. If you think that a cockamamie strategy for considering bills spending trillions of dollars, you’re right. Yet these same Democrats claim the government they’re using for such a slapdash (and non-transparent) process can seemingly solve Americans’ every problem.
On the bright side, however, the wheels could be finally falling off of this reconciliation train wreck. In recent weeks Democrats have suffered numerous blows to their big-government dreams:
Other press speculation implied that the defeat of Democrat Terry McAuliffe by Republican Glenn Youngkin in the Virginia governor’s race could prompt moderate Democrats to abandon resident Biden’s “transformative” agenda altogether.
We should only be so lucky. The American people deserve much better legislation than this multi-trillion-dollar spending spree. They also deserve a better, open, and thoughtful process—one that treats voters and constituents with the transparency we have every right to demand as citizens.
Much deadlier a bill.
This one is a country killer.
Just keep tweeting about how you’ll be taxed if you have $600 in your account.
Might as well scare the f*** out of all the numbskulls that voted for Biden.
The only thing that will save us is Divine Intervention coupled with prayer.
You can’t scare dead people.
Shady pork spending bill worse than crooked Obamacare (Obamacare will save the average person $2,000 a month, some even more, for same coverage or better)....
So dishonest it’s like a guy of whom Al Capone said “I refuse to deal with him. He’s a crook.”
Please Support FR
Click The Pic To Donate.
Obamacare was just a trial balloon. If it could be put over, even by a small margin, then go for bust in Obama’s third term.
Once this precedent is established, there is no repeal, and no alternatives to be offered.
Let’s go Brandon!
We’ve got to vote FOR it to see what’s in it....../s
One of the most difficult things to determine reality for a child is the difference between success and failure. As long as there is some kind of success, as kids are taught today, the failure is collateral. So you’ve got to give them a chance to perform the failures they are accomplishing so they can figure out what they can get away with down the road. It is not within the curriculum to determine the amount of success or failure...just that it exists. Stepping across the line, no matter how far, is all part of the feeling out process until nothing can be done or anything whether it is feasible or not. And the accepted success doesn’t always include what the people who are trapped within the failure or success part think it is. That is where the reality totally disappears and progressive thinking joins the party and determines that, also.
wy69
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.